Like just about everyone in New York City, I’ve been thinking a lot about the events of five years ago.

For me, tied in my mind to the day of September 11, 2001, was a day a month later, in October. I was in the middle of my research on Winston Churchill, for my book Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill.

As I was reading some of Churchill’s speeches, I saw that on September 11, 1940, Churchill gave a broadcast about the “Blitz,” the brutal nightly bombing of London.

One of the most striking things about New York City in the period after the attack on the World Trade Center was that, despite the shock and devastation, there was a tremendous mood of morale and determination.

Churchill’s words seemed to have been written for our own circumstances.

These cruel, wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, a part of Hitler’s invasion plans. He hopes, by killing large numbers of civilians, and women and children, that he will terrorise and cow the people of this mighty imperial city, and make them a burden and anxiety to the Government…Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners…who have been bred to value freedom far above their lives. This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatred, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame, has now resolved to try to break our famous Island race by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and all over the world, which will glow long after all traces of the conflagration he has caused in London have been removed.

“The Chinese have a theory that you pass through boredom into fascination and I think it’s true. I would never choose a subject for what it means to me or what I think about it. You’ve just got to choose a subject, and what you feel about it, what it means, begins to unfold if you just plain choose a subject and do it enough.” –Diane Arbus.

I’m doing pretty well with the week of Extreme Nice. Yesterday, I hardly saw the Big Man, but I did do good deeds on his behalf. My main goal for today is to mail a big box for him. What a pain.

Now, although it might seem that the Big Man is the sole beneficiary of the week of Extreme Nice, I get a huge benefit as well.

One of the most helpful things I’ve learned in my happiness research is that although we think that we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act.

As a result, one of my Twelve Commandments is “Act as I would feel.” And as improbable as it may sound, it really works. Try it. If you don’t like the way you’re feeling, act as you’d like to feel—and your feelings will change. Like magic.

William James sums up the phenomenon nicely: “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”

So while you might expect that lavishing Extreme Niceness on the Big Man might make me feel resentful or smug, in fact, by being extremely nice, by acting very loving, I boost my feelings of love and tenderness.

For example, today, on my way to a meeting near Grand Central, I happened to walk by the Big Man’s office building. So, as I’d done once before, I called him and told him to look out his window at the steps of St. Bartholomew’s Church. I stood on the steps and waved up to him on the 18th floor. I felt quite self-conscious, waving up at a skyscraper as pedestrians gave me curious looks—but of course in New York City, I’d have to do something far quirkier than that to make anyone stare.

I’m sure the Big Man thought it was nice of me to wave to him, but he probably didn’t think about it for more than a minute or so. But taking the time to make that silly, affectionate gesture filled me with good feelings that have persisted for hours.
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Using StumbleUpon, I just stumbled upon a very fun site. I’m not going to reveal anything more, but for a little happiness boost, check out Jackson Pollock.

Two resolutions from June, the month of “Eat a peach,” are to push myself and fight my limitations. And a key way I want to push myself is to write more journalistic pieces.

For some reason, I have a real antipathy for this kind of work. Why? Partly because I hate deadlines—not because I have trouble meeting deadlines, but because I have trouble doing anything except working until I’ve completed my task. I was one of those very annoying people in college and law school who finished their papers days early; I hate the panicky feeling of running out of time. Any deadline that’s closer than three months away makes me feel hugely pressured.

Also, with that kind of writing, I feel very susceptible to attack. I imagine hordes of angry readers criticizing me, and I’m filled with anticipatory dread and defensiveness. Why? Despite my reluctance, I have written lots of journalistic pieces, and have never met with a tidal wave of disapproval. So I don’t know why I’m so bothered by that feeling.

I think the best way to overcome this feeling is to push through it. I imagine that if I did lots more journalism, my dread would dissipate.

So I’m very happy with myself that I did write a piece for the Wall Street Journal Online yesterday. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at it online until this morning, but nothing dire has happened, so I’ve relaxed a bit.

I wrote about a topic that fascinates me: the relationship between money and happiness: Money Can’t Buy Happiness? This Blogger Begs to Differ. (It may be available to subscribers only.) As I wrote in that piece, and as I’ve written in this blog, I believe that money, spent wisely, absolutely can help people achieve happiness.

Pushing myself to write that piece reminded me of a strange wrinkle in the pursuit of happiness—an effect that I think happiness researchers may be overlooking in their studies. And that’s the fact that happiness doesn’t always make you happy.

For example, one research tool to measure quality of daily life is the Day Reconstruction Method, which asks people to record the previous day’s activities and to describe their feelings about them.

But I’ve noticed that, paradoxical as it seems, happiness often makes me unhappy. I do things that make me “happy” or satisfied or fulfilled in a very deep sense, but that cause me to feel a lot of unhappiness or uneasiness or annoyance on the surface. If someone with a clipboard asked, “Are you happy?” I would say no. And yet I am happy, too.

Giving a speech. Getting a colonoscopy. Caring for a fretful, sick child. Spending time with a parent with Alzheimer’s. Taking the Series 7 exam. Are you happy doing these things—before, during, or after? Perhaps you feel relief when the chore is over. Or you feel the warm glow of having done your duty. Or maybe you shove the whole experience out of your mind as soon as possible. Is that “happiness”?

I think that it is happiness—but perhaps not the kind of happiness that shows up in the Day Reconstruction Method.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday…Tips on how to be happy—from the year 1625.

Below are selected suggestions put forth by British philosopher, essayist, and statesman Francis Bacon in his essay, “Of Regiment of Health”:

It is a safer conclusion to say, This agreeth not well with me, therefore I will not continue it, than this, I find no offence of this, therefore I may use it.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still.

Beware of sudden change in any great point of diet, and if necessity enforce it, fit the rest to it. For it is a secret, both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one. [I found this observation particularly intriguing.]

Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel and the like, and try in anything thou shalt judge hurtful, to discontinue it little by little; but so as if thou dost find any inconvenience by the change, thou come back to it again: for it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome from that which is good particularly and fit for thine own body.

To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and of sleep and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting.

Avoid envy, anxious fears, anger fretting inwards, subtle and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhilarations in excess, sadness not communicated.

Entertain hopes, mirth rather than joy, variety of delights rather than surfeit of them, wonder and admiration (and therefore novelties), studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects (as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature).

Despise no new accident [unexpected change] in your body, but ask opinion of it.

In sickness, respect health principally; and in health, action.